//------------------------------//
// Big Plans 
// Story: Where There is Shadow 
// by firesoxs 
//------------------------------//

	Skittish lay in bed, he was awake but he didn’t really want to get up in hopes that he would fall asleep again. It had been over a week since their arrival, in which time Sombra’s new room had been constructed and furnished. For ponies this would have be an impossible feat of engineering, however the changeling were quite adept when it came to building. Skittish had been able to sleep in an actual bed for the past six nights, a luxury he had gone with out for nearly a month. On his first night he had noticed that the sheets were nowhere near as course as Sombra had made them out to be, in fact Sombra had made such a fuss about it that he went through three sets of the things until he found one that was acceptable. The one thing Skittish could not determine was whether Sombra had complained about it was because he was used to finer linins, or simply because he refused to be happy with anything he was given. A brief look at Sombra’s attitude toward his host strongly suggested the latter, after Chrysalis had been informed that her guests could not eat changeling jelly she saw to it that they were provided with more pony friendly provisions. She hoof picked a small team of food gatherers to scavenge the forests and nearby mountain sides. The foraging team routinely brought back lush and delicious greenery; fresh grass, tart berries, dandelions and daisies, and on occasion mushrooms. Skittish usually had to settle for the grass because Sombra got first pick from whatever was brought back, but he would constantly throw away more than half of his food complaining about the flavor or that saying it was dried out.
Sombra’s voice could be heard through the door and ways down the hall from the Skittish’s bedroom. The voice grew louder as it drew closer, until it was right outside the door. Quite expectedly the doors flew open with a clamor, causing Skittish to jump even though he knew it would happen. “Get up maggot!” Sombra shouted as he walked into the room followed by the changeling that had been assigned to be his personal servant. “ I said get up slug, we’re getting out of here.” It might have been just him, but Skittish thought Sombra’s constant insults seemed to be more insect related as of late. “Where are we going?” Skittish asked rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“We’re going to Canterlot, so I’d advise you get us some provisions for the journey.”
“I’d assume this means you’ve come up with a plan to recruit Discord.”
“I came up with a plan days ago. I was just hoping I could spend a few weeks to gather my strength.” 
“So why are we leaving so soon?”
“Because I can’t stand being around these bugs.” Sombra said looking directly at his servant. “What are you still doing here? I told you to go and get Chrysalis!” he shouted sending the small changeling from his sight.

After several minutes of uncomfortable silence Chrysalis arrived with Titus following close behind her. Although the changeling queen looked quite menacing on her own, or at least just as much so as any of her subjects, she definitely looked like somepony not to be messed with her mammathian body guard in tow. “Your servant has informed me that you have devised a plan to win Discord to our cause. I hope that you have also thought of a way to free him from his stone prison, other wise your plan will be useless.” Chrysalis said with a definite air of cynicism.
“I have been many things your highness, but a fool has never been one of them.”
“Perhaps when you’ve been to busy freeloading to attain that level of intelligence.” Chrysalis goaded, knowing Sombra wouldn’t dare retort while Titus was around. “So what is this grand scheme of yours? I certainly hope it was worth so long a wait.”
“I would prefer to tell you when we get to Canterlot, less chance of your backing out.” Sombra said casting a glance at Titus who raised an eye brow cautioning him against any further implications. 
“When “we” get to Canterlot, I’m sorry but when did I agree to go to Canterlot?”
“We will need a representative from each party to convince Discord to join our cause. Trust me the higher rank the representative the more impressive our proposal.”
“If you want a show of strength then take Titus with you, Discord will surely be impressed by that.” Titus looked surprised at his queens suggestion, but quickly recovered from his brief loss of composure.
“That will never do. Your second is far too large to accompany us to the capital of Equestria, even in disguise he would trigger too many alarms. Besides we need somepony who knows there way around the city, somepony who’s been there before, and that would be you.”
Chrysalis took a few moments to think about what Smbra had said and finally replied, “I will go with you. However we will be escorted by my personal guard until we reach the city, just as a precaution of course.” 



  *          *          *


After three long days of travel Sombra, Skittish and Chrysalis had finally reached Canterlot. Sombra was feeling quite perturbed because he felt that everypony in the little entourage was slowing him down. As absurd as it my seem to others, the validity of this assumption was not questionable to Sombra. As far as he was concerned anything that he found slightly annoying was inferior, and he found most things unendurably aggravating. The only thing that Sombra could count as a silver lining to this endeavourer was the fact that Chrysalis had seen fit to leave Titus at home. Being her number two he was obligated to oversee the running of the castles affairs no matter how he protested. 
Once they were within sight of the city Chrysalis sent her guards back to the castle. She had only needed there protection when crossing the wilderness, now that they were in the heart of the Equestrian empire Sombra wouldn’t dare to try anything.
“Are you going to tell me your plan now that we’re here?” Chrysalis asked with genuine annoyance in her voice. 
“I’ll explain on the way. But first we need to disguise our selves.”  
“Disguise…” Chrysalis questioned as her crooked horn began to glow. An eerie green light appeared in her eyes and spread across her body. A circle of fire of the same color sprung to life around her hooves, the flames grew higher and more intense until they had completely enshrouded her. When the unnatural blaze died down Chrysalis had disappeared and been replaced with a dark grey mare wearing a royal robe and plate armor. Atop her head she had a great crown with her blood red horn as a centerpiece. “You mean like this?” she said throwing back her raven black mane.
“Is that supposed to be funny?” Sombra said, not even trying to hide his distain for the gesture. 
“Oh common, I think I look great, sexy even.” She paused to take a step towards Skittish using her magic to remove her armor and loosen the clasp of her cape. “Skittish, what do you think of me?” Unable to speak Skittish swallowed nervously, “I’m the Queen of Darkness and Despair, I can have anything my heart desires with a clop of my hooves.” She said, now leaning on him “But I am so lonely, and sometimes I just want a stallion to hold me!” she cried in desperation. Skittish looked into her face to see she was blushing slightly, and tears were in her eyes. Skittish felt a strange emotion stirring deep within his chest, and his head was spinning so much that he had forgotten both who this mare beside him was and who she resembled. The only thing he knew was that she was hurting, and all he wanted to do was consol her, to protect her. Skittish was prepared to answer when the beautiful grey mare transformed back into Chrysalis and said “Won’t you come to my chambers?” in a terrible croak, like an old witch beckoning fillies to come inside her candy cottage. Skittish was so startled that he flew backwards letting out a scream. His cries were so loud they might have caused anypony within earshot to come running to help, if he wasn’t cut short when Sombra hit him in the stomach winding him.
“Serves you right. If we were anywhere but hear I’d probably have killed you.” Skittish lay on the ground holding his stomach, and as he realized what had just happened he began to feel worse, sick even. 
Sombra, who was leaning over the limp pony beneath him, turned to Chrysalis, “And what do you think you were doing? If somepony had seen that we’d be done for!”
“Relax, I was just having a little fun.”  She replied changing into a blue mare with a gold mane. 
“Well the next time you want to have “fun” use somepony else’s likeness to do it.” Sombra growled as he disappeared into her shadow. The two started toward the train station at the foot of the mountain on which Canterlot perched. “Are you quite finished lazing about?” Sombra shouted back as Skittish started to pick himself up.
Once they had reached the station they bought passage from the ticket master and waited next to an elderly gentlecolt. An annoying old geezer, who made it a point to mention how he should have retired years ago, and to complain about the economy every ten minuts. “I could have retired three years ago, but I thought I’d wait till I had finished my fifty years. Then one day I read that they’re raising the retirement age! Now I have to wait two more years!” he would say, and with out waiting for a response he continued, “And I can’t even go to the market without being cheated. Why yesterday I bought three tomatoes for a bit, a pretty good deal, but when I was young you could get twice as many for that much. Any way, I got two tomatoes for a bit, then I walk over to the cherry stand and he wanted to charge me two bits for “A” cherry. One cherry for two bits! Two bits! If I’m going to spend that much on a cherry it’d better cook me breakfast and clean my house! So you know what I told the guy?”
“Oh I couldn’t possibly imagine.” Chrysalis sighed.
“I told him, “You take one good look at me, cuz you’re never going to see me here again!” And you know what I did after that, I went to buy more tomatoes. When I got home I cut them up and put some sugar on em, that’s what we did for sweets when I was colt. We couldn’t afford fancy things like triple frosting cupcakes and imported cheese, no sir. I’d like to see these spoiled youth learn to eat what I had to put up with. Why one time all I had to eat for a whole week was two…” Just then the train arrived and the three boarded as quickly as they possibly could so as to escape the senile work horse. Indeed the old codger’s stories were so long and so boring that in the time it took to listen to one of them ponies could sense their manes growing. 
Once they were safe in their private car Chrysalis and Sombra saw fit to abandon their disguises if only to rest their frayed nerves. Not wanting to waist any more time Chrysalis turned to Sombra and asked, “So what is this great plan of yours?”
“Well my plan is simple, there are only two ways to free Discord from his marble prison. The only way to get him out without Celestia’s say so is the Elements of Harmony, which are of course out of the question. So the only other option is to get Celestia to set him free of her own accord, which will require some trickery on our part.”
“Wait, I heard he was first freed buy the disharmony of some quarreling schoolfillies?” 
“Well that spell was over a thousand years old, in century or possibly less he could have escaped on his own.” Sombra explained.
“Oh, I see.” 
“As I was saying, we will need to trick Celestia into freeing Discord on her own. The best way I can think of is to play on her sense of naïve and misguided “goodness.” Do you still know where important officials live?”
“I think I can find a few members of her court.” 
“Good, good. We will need to replace one of them and get close enough to convince her that Discord can somehow be reformed. Once he’s out and we can get a moment with him the game is ours.” Sombra said smiling devilishly. The rest of the train ride was spent discussing which court members were easiest to gain access to and whether the more vulnerable ones would be close enough to the princess to have any real influence.
Once the train had stopped Chrysalis quickly donned her disguise and Sombra took his place in her shadow. Skittish who had been sitting quietly thought he didn’t need any disguise but Sombra rubbed some black polish he had stolen from the hoof-shine booth in his coat and mane anyway. The last thing they needed was an out of place crystal pony drawing attention to them.
As they were about to exit the train Chrysalis spotted the old stallion from before and ducked behind a wall. “This is ridiculous!” grumbled Sombra, “We’re planning to conquer this entire country and we’re hiding from a pony so old that we could probably just wait for him to die and be out of here before lunch.”
“Oh, well if that’s how you feel about it then by all means let’s go.” Chrysalis said as she started toward the train stations main doors.
“No! I didn’t mean go right over there! If you do that we’ll be here all day. We have to wait.” 
They waited for a quite some time as the old pony had a lengthy, and albeit one sided, conversation with the one of the bagboys about work ethic. Finally the geezer started for the door slowly plodding along stopping twice to yell at some foals playing in with the baggage carts, and that’s when it happened. Just as he was about to leave the building a cream pie flew seemingly out of nowhere and struck him square in the face.